A series of internal State Department emails obtained by Fox News shows some some of the initial assessments of last month's deadly consulate attack in Libya, including one email within hours of the attack that noted that the group Ansar al Sharia had claimed responsibility.

Ansar al Sharia has been declared by the State Department to be a an Al Qaeda-affiliated group. A member of the group suspected of participating in the Sept. 11 attack in Benghazi has been arrested and is being held in Tunisia.

The emails obtained by Fox News were sent by the State Department to a variety of national security platforms, whose addresses have been redacted, including the White House Situation Room, the Pentagon, the FBI and the Director of National Intelligence.

Fox News was told that an estimated 300 to 400 national security figures received these emails in real time almost as the raid was playing out and concluding. People who received these emails work directly under the nation’s top national security, military and diplomatic officials, Fox News was told.

The timestamps on the emails are all Eastern Time and often include the subheading SBU…which is shorthand for “Sensitive But Unclassified.”

The first email indicates that U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and other personnel were “in the compound safe haven.” Officials later discovered that Stevens and three other Americans had died in the attack.

The first email was sent at 4:05 p.m. ET with the subject line “U.S. Diplomatic Mission in Benghazi Under Attack (SBU).”

“The Regional Security Officer reports the diplomatic mission is under attack," the email reads. "Embassy Tripoli reports approximately 20 armed people fired shots; explosions have been heard as well. Ambassador Stevens, who is currently in Benghazi, and four COM personnel are in the compound safe haven. The 17th of February militia is providing security support.

"The operations Center will provide updates as available.”

The second email came at 4:54 p.m. ET, with a subject line “Update 1: U.S. Diplomatic Mission in Benghazi (SBU)"

“Embassy Tripoli reports the firing at the U.S. Diplomatic Mission in Benghazi has stopped and the compound has been cleared. A response team is on site attempting to locate COM personnel.”

The third email came at 6:07 p.m. ET and was sent to a different email list but still includes the White House Situation Room address and a subject line of “Update 2: Ansar al-Sharia Claims Responsibility for Benghazi Attack (SBU).”

“Embassy Tripoli reports the group claimed responsibility on Facebook and Twitter and has called for an attack on Embassy Tripoli," the email reads.

In an exclusive interview with Breitbart News, Fox News military analyst Colonel David Hunt laid the blame for the murder of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans at the Benghazi, Libya American mission on Hillary Clinton and the State Department:

The State Department just allowed our guys to get killed. If you approve no bullets in guns for the mission security guards and an outhouse for a mission, you’re inviting it.

Earlier, on Howie Carr's radio show*Thursday, Colonel Hunt said that the American mission at Benghazi "was like a cardboard building, there wasn't even bullet proof glass." In addition, Hunt said the security guards inside the mission didn't have bullets:

Howie Carr: They weren't allowed to have bullets, is that correct?*
Colonel Hunt: That's true.*They were private security. The rules of engagement were ridiculous.*

Hunt told Breitbart News that*the new State Department Rules of Engagement for Libya, approved and signed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton since the 2011 fall of Khadafi's regime, severely compromised the safety and security of murdered Ambassador Stevens and all American diplomatic staff in Libya.*

He also stated that*the decision not to staff Benghazi with Marines was made by Secretary of State Clinton when she attached her signature to the State Department Rules of Engagement for Libya document. Breitbart News has subsequently learned that under those rules of engagement, Secretary Clinton prohibited Marines from providing security at any American diplomatic installation in Libya.

Hunt told Breitbart News that "the rules of engagement have been changing drastically over the last 10 years. . .*The reason the surge in Iraq worked was we had another 40,000 soldiers and the rules of engagement were changed to allow our guys to shoot.*What’s happened in Libya is the final straw of political correctness. We allowed a contractor to hire local nationals as security guards, but said they can't have bullets. This was all part of the point of not having a high profile in Libya."
According to Hunt, the debacle at the American mission in Benghazi is directly the result of Obama's new policies.*"The policy of the Obama administration led to this," he said.

"It was the policy of the Obama administration to have a low profile in Libya. That's why the rules of engagement were approved by the Secretary of State to have no Marines at Benghazi, and to have an American contractor hire Libyan nationals to provide security there. The rules were they couldn't have ammunition."

"Obama may not have known the details of the*State Department Rules of Engagement for Libya, but his Chief of Staff and National Security Advisor would have. The Secretary of State absolutely would have."

"The Department of State Security are the people in charge of diplomatic security. They enforce the rules of engagement, which are set at*Clinton’s level at State. The Department of Defense was told we’re not going to have Marines at Benghazi. Whether it goes higher than the Secretary of *State to the President, I don't know."

Hunt added that the rules of engagement specific to each country or military situation are drawn up by State Department lawyers and approved by the chain of command. "There should be a document with Hillary’s signature and the Secretary of Defense's specific to Libya. It was signed after Khadafi fell from power. *You'll have to ask the State Department to get the document. They might claim it's classified, but it shouldn't be."

"The State Department has rules of engagement documents that are different for different countries. In our embassies in London and Paris, for instance, *it’s always *a mystery if the Marines at the embassies have ammunition in their weapons."

Hunt compared the security at the Benghazi mission with security at the recent RNC and DNC.
"The recent political conventions had more security than Ambassador Stevens had in Benghazi. If you carried a sharp stick within a mile of the conventions at Tampa or Charlotte you got arrested, yet you don't give bullets to the guards of our Ambassador to Libya. It wouldn't surprise me if Al-Qaeda bought off some of the Libyan nationals hired to guard our ambassador at Benghazi."

Ambassador Stevens was based at the American embassy in Tripoli. According to a spokesperson at the State Department, he would visit the mission at Benghazi sporadically. No one at the State Department has yet answered this key question:*

Why on the anniversary of 9-11 was he at the low security mission in Benghazi when it would obviously have been more prudent for him to have been at the presumably more secure embassy in Tripoli?

At her daily press briefing on Thursday, State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland*offered a description of the defenses at the Benghazi mission*that appeared to be in conflict with other press reports. In contrast to some reports that said security within the perimeter of the mission was provided by Libyan nationals, Nuland stated that they provided security on the perimeter and that "there was a robust American security presence inside the compound." [emphasis added]:

QUESTION: Can you talk a little bit more about the security that was at the Embassy? It seems that for an area such as Benghazi, where there was a lot of instability, there were very few guards there. And can you talk about whether the U.S. asked Libya, the Libyan Government, earlier in the week for extra security precaution and whether that – extra security precautions or security personnel and whether that request was fulfilled. . .It does seem though that there were very few security personnel at this location.

MS. NULAND: I’m going to reject that, Elise. Let me tell you what I can about the security at our mission in Benghazi. It did include a local Libyan guard force around the outer perimeter. This is the way we work in all of our missions all around the world, that the outer perimeter is the responsibility of the host government. There was obviously a physical perimeter barrier, a wall. And then there was a robust American security presence inside the compound. This is absolutely consistent with what we have done at a number of missions similar to Benghazi around the world. . .
Ms. Nuland, however, failed to elaborate on the specifics or size of the "robust American security" within the perimeter of the mission. Later in her news briefing, she addressed the State Department reasoning for failing to have Marines stationed at Benghazi:

MS. NULAND: There were not marines at this mission.

QUESTION: Why not?

MS. NULAND: They – we have a number of posts around the world. We have – there are embassies without marines, there are other consulates of this type without marines. We make a decision based on the local conditions as to whether that makes sense, but this posture that we had, which was external security by the Libyans and then a strong U.S. security presence – but it didn’t include that particular contingent of Americans – inside, in a number of other missions that look a lot like Benghazi. . .

QUESTION: Is that for marines coming generally from the mission itself, or does the State Department say, you know, the situation’s really bad right now in this particular section of the world, perhaps we should have marines based here.

MS. NULAND: It’s not a matter of marines necessarily being a qualitatively different way of securing. There are many other ways to secure that are equivalent, too. It depends on the circumstances and it is different in every part of the world, and we evaluate it along with our friends at the Defense Department and other agencies individually, per mission.
Breitbart News has attempted to secure a copy of the State Department Rules of Engagement for Libya, but officials at the State Department have stonewalled, as this email correspondence from Friday reveals:
To [State Dept Spokesperson]:

(A) Status of my document request for the State Department rules of engagement for Libya?
(B) Can you help me find answers to these two questions:
1. Who provided security inside the Benghazi mission at the time of the 9-11-12 attack, how were they armed, and how many of them were there?
2. Who provided security on the perimeter of the Benghazi mission at the time of the 9-11-12 attack, how were they armed, and how many of them were there?

Michael Patrick Leahy
Breitbart News Contributor

Here is the official response from that State Department spokesperson:
Michael -*

I do not yet have more information on the rules of engagement document, which as discussed last night, might require a FOIA request. I will let you know as soon as I receive feedback. However, and this also applies to your two follow up questions, we do not discuss security details for the safety of our missions. The two questions below are addressed to the fullest extent possible in both briefings I sent you last night.*
[State Department Spokesperson]

On Friday, Breitbart News filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the State Department to secure a copy of the State Department Rules of Engagement for Libya.

Look for the State Department to continue to stonewall this request, and resist release of the document until after the election. Its contents will be just too damaging. In effect, the country will be able to see Hillary Clinton's signature on the document that served as Ambassador Chris Stevens's death warrant.

The President knew it was an attack 20 minutes into a 7 hour battle.
The President did not mobilize to support 30 Americans under attack in a US Embassy immediately even though military assets were in the region.
The White House watched the attack unfold from a live camera feed.
The White House had prior warning of the attack so they knew what they were seeing.
The group responsible claims responsibility before the attack even concludes.

Then the President spends the next two weeks trying to convince the world it was a protest by a bunch of Muslim citizens protesting over a video they had not seen that got out of hand. Even goes as far as to scape goat the film maker and get him thrown in jail over a minor parole violation.

So Obama falsely accuses the whole Muslim community, blames the intelligence community, has Hillary take the fall, lecutures Romney on playing politics, scape goats the film maker, sends his whole team out to convince the world of a false storyline and tells the UN it was a reaction to a video. The whole time Obama was aware he was propagating a lie.

The President knew it was an attack 20 minutes into a 7 hour battle.
The President did not mobilize to support 30 Americans under attack in a US Embassy immediately even though military assets were in the region.
The White House watched the attack unfold from a live camera feed.
The White House had prior warning of the attack so they knew what they were seeing.
The group responsible claims responsibility before the attack even concludes.

Then the President spends the next two weeks trying to convince the world it was a protest by a bunch of Muslim citizens protesting over a video they had not seen that got out of had. Even goes as far as to scape goat the film maker and get him thrown in jail over a minor parole violation.

So Obama falsely accuses the whole Muslim community, blames the intelligence community, has Hillary take the fall, lecutures Romney on playing politics, scape goats the film maker, sends his whole team out to convince the world of a false storyline and tells the UN it was a reaction to a video. The whole time Obama was aware he was propagating a lie.

The President knew it was an attack 20 minutes into a 7 hour battle.
The President did not mobilize to support 30 Americans under attack in a US Embassy immediately even though military assets were in the region.
The White House watched the attack unfold from a live camera feed.
The White House had prior warning of the attack so they knew what they were seeing.
The group responsible claims responsibility before the attack even concludes.

Then the President spends the next two weeks trying to convince the world it was a protest by a bunch of Muslim citizens protesting over a video they had not seen that got out of hand. Even goes as far as to scape goat the film maker and get him thrown in jail over a minor parole violation.

So Obama falsely accuses the whole Muslim community, blames the intelligence community, has Hillary take the fall, lecutures Romney on playing politics, scape goats the film maker, sends his whole team out to convince the world of a false storyline and tells the UN it was a reaction to a video. The whole time Obama was aware he was propagating a lie.

Remind me, who was playing politics???

Anyone who points out the things you just did in this post, apparently.

__________________

“Boy, you all want power. God, I hope you never get it.” - Lindsay Graham